Devon 2022

Arriving in Devon

It feels like a long time since I last had a reason to blog, but it is not that long really – only six weeks or so.  In this time, Ethel has had a wash and brush up and is sparkling – ready for the travelling ahead of us in 2022.

Mel and I have booked a couple of weeks away in April but decided that was far too long to wait for some R&R so I gleefully leapt on Google to find a site to stay on this weekend.  We decided to head for Devon as Rory and his wife live in Okehampton and Mel’s aunt and uncle live in Honiton so I looked for somewhere in the middle so we can meet up with them.

Many of my previous blogs tell stories of chaos when we are getting ready to leave.  We have problems with taking too much stuff, Mel wanting to clean the house from top to bottom before we leave, me getting stressed with trying to load the bikes etc. etc. etc.  But today there weren’t any of these dramas.  The journey from Surrey to Devon was also painless.  Minimal traffic, even by Stonehenge, no indicator bulbs blowing or windscreen wipers flying off and not a single accident.  We wonder if we have entered an alternate reality as even the weather is nice.  Life is good!

However, our luck couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t. After forcing Ethel up the mountainous road out of Honiton, we see signs directing us to our site and we turn off the main road.  This is the time where I say I am not going to name the site as I do not want to destroy their reputation in one sentence, and I don’t want to be sued but the reality of the site did not resemble the website in any way. 

Initially, we thought we had driven into the wrong place as it seemed to be more like a scrap yard.  There were vans, farmyard machinery, broken signs and general mess spread across what was just a field when we had been expecting a normal type of site with flat pitches and at least a reception block. 

Maybe this was my karma as I have gone on and on about how boring the average caravan sites is with everything being identical and petty rules but here it seemed like chaos. We weren’t sure what to do but Mel nudged me forward as she is much braver than me and we carried on down the track.  I noticed a old lady carrying a mop and bucket and dressed in what seemed full PPE equipment.  Now I felt as if we were in a covid quarantine station.  I slowed down and opened my window, planning to ask her if we were in the right place, but she didn’t even look up at us.  This was even stranger, but I had no choice other than to continue down to a concrete area outside a building – at least we could turn around there and leave.

As I pulled up and before we had time to say to each other ‘are we going to be murdered here’, PPE lady appeared and asked if we were the people arriving at 3pm?  I looked at my watch and saw it was 2.40pm.  We were early – would that put us at further risk?  I sort of nodded and gave her my name.  She said we were the only people coming today anyway and this didn’t help us feel any safer. In a broad Devonian voice, she started talking about how they could not put us in a field as we may get stuck as they were so wet and pointed at a place in the car park where they had decided we could park up.  Mel and I looked at the space, looked at each other and weren’t sure whether to laugh, cry or do a runner. 

The space was in the little car park next to two large metal containers and the area had a variety of empty Calor gas bottles, wellie boots, old milk churns, tools, wire, boxes, and lot of other rubbish.  At this point I knew I would have to keep an eye on Mel as she probably thought she had arrived in heaven as she was surrounded by so much junk.  For me, the only redeeming factor at that point, was a beautiful tortoiseshell cat who was exceedingly friendly.

Being polite people, we felt we had no other choice than to attempt to park in the little allocated space and try to ignore our immediate surroundings.  Setting up wasn’t too difficult, even with an old man (presumably the husband of PPE lady) stopping to chat with us with an axe in his hand.  Now I knew we were going to die.

Time will tell if we make it through the night but at least after all the grief we had with the poncy satellite system at Christmas, you will be pleased to know we are successfully watching tv and wishing we had written our wills!